The invention relates to a controller for powered industrial trucks, especially stacking vehicles, with a rotary handle for the continuous actuation of a first and second function.
Known controllers for powered industrial trucks are usually in several parts, dependent on function. As soon as more than one vehicle function must be controlled by such controllers, both hands of the operator are required. As a result, simultaneous steering of the vehicle is prevented, so that operating the functions of the vehicle requires, in principle, stopping the vehicle.
Controllers are already known in which one vehicle function, for example the travel command, is actuated continuously through a rotary handle, and another vehicle function, for example the lifting and lowering of the load carriage, is actuated by actuation of pressure or rocker switches lying just outside the rotary handle. This gives the operator difficulty in operating either the rotary handle or the pressure or rocker switch, since the latter, upon rotation of the rotary handle, often comes to lie outside the reach of the operator's thumb (normally used for this purpose) and thus cannot be operated at the same time. In this way, a super-imposing of these vehicle functions or the resultant simultaneous cycles of movement, are prevented. Further, such devices usually require a number of separate control circuits, corresponding to the individual switches.
Controllers in which pressure switches or pressure knobs are already arranged directly on the rotary handle, for example on the end of same, exclude a continuous regulation of function.
This is also the case with a pilot control device, disclosed in German Utility Model 78 22 523, which consists of a T-shaped setting lever, and a plurality of pressure knobs or selection levers arranged thereon, which are inconvenient to operate and do not exclude failed operations.